Pre Marriage Course

I found out that my OH thinks he does more in the house than he actually does. :pac:

Our arguing styles were analysed and we were advised on how to deal with each others way of dealing with conflict.

We were advised on what you should not do in a row. And it was very interesting. How certain things are almost guaranteed to cause a row to esclate etc.

We were told how marriage is the only scarament which is given from one person to another as opposed to from God. (while not a huge church go-er I thought this was a lovely way for it to be).

Whatever questions were asked, or whether you think you will get somthing out of it or not, spending the day working on your relatioship makes you feel closer.

Oh We also learned that in a poll by durex, 45% of Irish people have used handcuffs!

There were a few more stand out things that I can't quite remember now, but I'll have a look at the workbooks and post again. Honestly I was not happy about having to do it, I too had heard all of the stories about how awful it is. But I'm glad we did. Our host (lecturer?) was not a priest but a family therapist and very little emphasis was put on preaching, contrception etc.

prinz wrote: »

There was no issue it brought up in my case that we as a couple hadn't discussed thoroughly before...

So how would you say it actually benefited you? Imo, €100-200 is quite a bit of money, €100 is more than I spent on my entire wedding outfit, €200 is more than both my husband and I spent. I would have wanted some pretty stellar benefit to my relationship to justify spending more than our clothing budget on it.

prinz wrote: »

In the middle of a hectic period in our lives it was wonderful to have some time to laugh together, joke together, and tbh it almost felt like falling in love again. It's hard to explain, but it's almost like there was a large weight lifted off our shoulders...It's hard to explain tbh. To me it was well worth a holiday away together that would've cost a lot more.

Yeah that's what it was like - we got the same from it and not only was I sceptical before going to the course I was afraid!

eyescreamcone wrote: »

I can't understand why people who never go to mass and are not religious want to have catholic weddings anyway.
How does this ceremony reflect who you are?
Who are you trying to please? Parents?
These people are sheep.

Why not go for a civil, humanist or unitarian ceremony?
You should be the one in charge not some guy in a dress who you've only seen twice

I disagree with most of this. Both my husband and me were born and raised Catholics. Neither of us is a believer now. We go to Mass for other people's occasions (weddings, baptisms etc) and for community celebrations. We are raising our child as a Catholic as we both felt we benefitted from having a religious/moral code in our early lives and want to offer our child the same thing (I know we could offer our own moral code but as the extended family is Catholic, Catholicism makes sense for us). If he later chooses that it's not for him, grand, but I'd rather he was knowledgeable about a particular religion than none. We will balance the religious part of his upbringing with an appreciation for other religions and no religion. Then he'll be equipped to make his own decisions when he is ready.

We got married in the Catholic Church. We chose this because both of our families are practising Catholics (most of them anyway). I don't believe this makes me a sheep. It was a conscious decision. The act of marriage, whether in a religious or a secular ceremony, is to publicly declare your commitment to each other before your community. Our community (friends and family) would see that declaration as being more binding and authentic if it took place before their god. The feeling of goodwill we got from our families during the marriage ceremony was the closest thing I've had to a spiritual experience, and that would have been missing from the day had there been resentments or disappointment because we had chosen a secular ceremony. There was no god present for me, but there was for my family and I'm happy for them. For me, the only important thing was marrying my husband - a priest, rabbi or a ship's captain could have presided over the ceremony and it would have been all the same to me, although I know the local priest and have great time for him so it was nice to have someone we know rather than a random stranger or government official. The fact that my family were pleased too made the day all the better.

And yes, we did the Accord pre-marriage course and enjoyed it thoroughly. It was run by two properly qualified relationship counsellors and one priest (in his early thirties). At no point were we lectured about contraception or sex. There was a light-hearted quiz on fertility and methods of contraception that was very funny - most of the men present hadn't a clue about how a woman's cycle works - but there was no religious guidance on the matter at all. The priest was not present for that section, he was mostly involved in explaining what the sacrament was about and how the ceremony would work.

Other parts that I remember from the course content were things like family of origin and conflict styles. Family of origin was excellent - it got you to examine relationships in your own family and how they influence the way you act with your partner, and the importance of accepting who your own family is, leaving them behind and moving on to create a new family unit of your own once you are married. This has particular resonance for us - someone in our family continues to have major marital problems because of not letting go of their own family and placing more of an emphasis on their family of origin than on their spouse. It was good to have it spelled out in such clear terms and made us resolve to separate ourselves clearly from the demands of our extended families. Causes and styles of conflict was also good - there was nothing raised that hadn't been raised between us before, but having a trained counsellor offer you advice and skills for resolving conflict was very helpful.

One last very sweet thing they got us to do was write each other a note (in private) telling each other why we had chosen each other and what we hoped for our life in the future. We were told to hide this note until the evening of our marriage and then to give it to each other, and after that to keep it safe and take it out every on anniversary. We still do this and it's magic.

So as a non-believing non-Catholic who still remains associated to the church, my experience is that the pre-marriage course is a very worthwhile experience and that being a lapsed Catholic getting married in the church does not necessarily make one a sheep or a hypocrite.

Hope you all have lovely weddings & marriages.

Just back from an ACCORD pre-marriage course. There were 40 people there, paying €100 a head so it's a nice little earner for somebody.

1. As I'm not madly religious - I was at mass about ten times in the past eight years (all weddings or funerals) - I was relieved that the emphasis was on relationships rather than religion. It was quite areligious and very practical.

2. I was particularly relieved that there were no prying questions or pressure to speak publicly. That was a huge source of relief.

3. I hope that at least some of the above money was given to the ACCORD facilitators who were superb. I would be annoyed if the time - all day today and yesterday evening - was simply volunteered by them and the CC got the airgead.

4. The priest, who spoke at the end and seemed like a sound fella, did say something to the effect that "because you're on this course you're taking your marriage seriously" - a comment which implied, to me anyway, that it was not, in fact, necessary to do this pre-marriage course.

eyescreamcone, this isn't the place for this debate. Perhaps you should take it to humanities.

Sorry to go a bit off topic but I felt the need to respond to something.

I believe in each to their own, and everyone has their own reasons for chosing church/secular/hand fasting/whatever. But I just want to make comment on the below quote:

Cat Melodeon wrote: »

Our community (friends and family) would see that declaration as being more binding and authentic if it took place before their god. The feeling of goodwill we got from our families during the marriage ceremony was the closest thing I've had to a spiritual experience, and that would have been missing from the day had there been resentments or disappointment because we had chosen a secular ceremony.

this is a common misconception of civil ceremonies, and it is far off the mark TBH. Most people who think this is the case have either never been to a civil ceremony or have only been to the standard registry office in-and-out version.

We had a civil ceremony and it was very emotional, spiritual and personal. The feeling of goodwill we experienced was also amazing, and this goodwill is there for you whether you marry in a church or not - most, if not all, of the people in attendence are there to share your happy event, and this makes them full of goodwill, the location does not deter from that. If someone had less good will for you because you did not marry in a church than that would be very un-Christian!

My father is very devoutly catholic, as are many of our neighbours. Yet several of the women still shed a tear and one of them came up to me specifically to say that the ceremony was beautiful, personal and touching and she had never been to a wedding where she felt so moved. This lady goes to church 7 days a week and is 70 years old! My father was a little bit, shall we say, unconvinced, by our choice of venue as he would have prefered a church and he would have thought as you do, that if its not in a church its not special. However following the ceremony he said that it was beautiful and moving. And I can guarantee that none of the religious people there would consider us less married because we were not in a church, so to say they would feel the wedding less binding because of the absense of a priest seems just bizarre to me.

The location is not what matters but the sentiment and tone set by the couple. This in turn flows on to the congregation.

To bring this back on topic, if you want the tone and setting that goes with a church, and if that is important to you (for whatever reason) then I think you need to accept that some things have a pay off - if your priest insists on a pre-marriage course, then suck it up. Regardless of your belief as to their efficacy then you have to grin and bear it, and you never know, in spite of it all you might get something out of it.

If you have such a strong conviction that it is a waste of time and money, then you should re-assess your reasons for wanting a church and perhaps be more honest with yourself as to why you want to have the church but not the procedure that goes with it.